Andy Barnard, milling supervisor at Cambridge Precision Ltd (CPL), was instrumental in the company investing in a five-axis machining capability.
It was already using Alphacam CAD/CAM software (
www.alphacam.com) to program its 27 milling machines, and Mr Barnard says that this software is now a vital part of its five-axis operation.
CPL ships hundreds of thousands of components a year to a number of industry sectors, including medical, pharmaceutical, aerospace, and automotive; parts are manufactured predominantly in aluminium, although steels, brass, copper and copper tungsten are also machined.
Nearly every job being undertaken on three-axis mills involves more than two operations, with many requiring four or five ops — and sometimes six.
Mr Barnard says that, along with production manager Nick Raven and programmer/setter Tom Szablicki, he could see the advantages of moving over to five-axis working, and CPL’s directors agreed with the recommendation.
“We were originally considering a new full five-axis machine, but we chose instead to add Nikken tables to a pair of existing machines. These tables have given a Haas mill a full five-axis simultaneous capability and a Doosan 650 a 4+1 capability.
“Straight away, these machines cut the number of ops down to two. The complete cycle time for one component — a container tracking box — has been cut from 75min to under 30 — and we saved a lot of time on making fixtures, as fewer are needed.”
Mr Barnard says the company is looking to expand its five-axis capability and invest in more seats of Alphacam. “It’s got to be the way forward, especially as it’s so easy for Alphacam to produce five-axis programs.
“We have been using it for around 15 years and have at least 100,000 programs stored, any one of which can be used as a potential starting point for new jobs with similar geometries and details.
“We can quickly load up the existing program to give an estimated run time, and this will be particularly beneficial on five-axis work. Alphacam also assists in the quoting process. For example, if a job calls for a block to be roughed out, we can use Alphacam to get an accurate cycle time for it within a few minutes.”
CPL’s Alphacam programming is done off-line on any one of six ‘seats’, with programs sent via the server to the appropriate machining centre. After the initial set-up and full inspection of the first off, the machines can run for 24hr periods, using the night shift.
Customers supply a solid model or DXF file; Mr Barnard says it is particularly easy to program jobs based on the solid model, apply the tool-paths, and send it out via the post-processor to generate machine-ready code. As CPL undertakes a range of 3-D machining work, Alphacam’s versatile Machining Styles function is particularly valuable, as is the powerful simulator.
“We use Simulation all the time, which saves us scrapping the part and damaging the machine or vice, or breaking the tooling. It is an essential aspect of the five-axis process, as we’ve got the machine configurations loaded, along with tool-holders and tools.
“A lot of the machining we do involves having a tool just 0.1 or 0.2mm away from the five-axis table or vice, but the simulation gives us absolute confidence that when we start cutting metal there won’t be any collisions.”
As well as CNC milling, CPL has a number of lathes; it also undertakes laser marking and electro-mechanical assembly. The company has 85 employees and an annual turnover of £6 million.